The Christmas Brand

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She agreed to be his fiancée until Christmas. Somebody is stealing his cattle by the night. Dr. Sadie Brannock bought the vet clinic in Tamarack, Montana, in September. By December, half the valley would still rather drive forty miles than let a woman from the Cities touch their cattle. Her only reliable company is a camel nobody else would take. Cole Bridger runs the Heart K, the ranch his family has worked since 1911. Somebody is cutting his fences and stealing his cows in the dark. At the end of the year the bank will count every bred cow on the place, and if there are fewer than 380, it can call his loan. Then his grandmother enters him in the church's Cowboy Christmas Auction, and the only way out is to be engaged. So he announces that he is. To the vet. Who has just walked in with the camel. Now they have to be convincing until Christmas Day: at church, at the dance, at his grandmother's table, under a bale of mistletoe with the whole valley watching. And every week the count gets closer to the number that could take the Heart K away. The Christmas Brand is a warm, funny Montana romance: a fake engagement that stops being fake, a real mystery told in brands and scars, a rodeo-queen grandmother who has arranged everything, and a camel who may just save Christmas by lying down. For readers who want: • A fake engagement with rules, and one that breaks every one of them • A ranch mystery with a deadline and a real clue a vet would spot • Montana at Christmas: blizzards, a living nativity, a church auction and a line shack in a storm • A whole valley of characters, including a camel with opinions • A happy ending that has to be earned A standalone novel with a happy ending. Sensual, not explicit: one love scene, implied and never described. Mild language. A parent's and a grandparent's death before the story begins; animals hurt and put down.